Thursday, March 22, 2012

A friend on Facebook recently posted this famous quote from Steve Jobs:

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.

The only problem is, anybody who listens to that quote and adopts what it says is failing to adhere to the advice it gives. The person who hears that message and walks away with an elated heart, thinking, that's exactly how I'm going to approach life, is, to draw from the quote itself, adhering to "the results of other people's thinking." The noise of Jobs' opinion is drowning out the hearer's own inner voice.

It's like the advice my uncle gave my wife and me on our wedding day. "As newlyweds and future parents," he said, "you're going to get a lot of advice from all kinds of people on every little aspect of married life. Don't listen to any of it. Chart your own course, and follow it." He then grinned and added, "In other words, ignore everybody's advice, except for what I'm telling you right now."

On the surface, both of these messages sound like a genuine nugget of wisdom. But the concept it promotes - unfailing reliance on one's own self - is insidiously dangerous, in that it can lead a soul into the isolation of the self, rejection of God, and risking final damnation.

One of the compelling truths I discovered on my way into the Catholic Church is that history is filled with all kinds of people wiser than me. I realized with a shock the pure arrogance of Protestant theology which empowers the individual Christian to discern absolute truth for him/herself. This deception is based on the Scripture verse promising that the Spirit of Truth would lead us into truth, but when one person's truth contradicts anothers, it's clear that at least one of them has been misled.

I propose that the deeper and purer teaching would be to discern whose wisdom is genuine and to follow the teachings and examples of those people. As a Catholic I willfully rely on the inherited wisdom of the Saints and Doctors of the Church, and with eagerness I adjust the way I live based on this revelation. Jobs brushes the edge of this Truth with his quote, but he is missing the full reality of it. G. K. Chesterton summed it up best way back in 1926, regarding his own journey to Catholicism, when he quipped:

We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right.
What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong. In
these current fashions it is not really a question of the religion
allowing us liberty; but (at the best) of the liberty allowing us a
religion. These people merely take the modern mood, with much in
it that is amiable and much that is anarchical and much that is
merely dull and obvious, and then require any creed to be cut
down to fit that mood. But the mood would exist even without the
creed.... They
say they want a religion like this because they are like this already.
They say they want it, when they mean that they could do without
it.

The key question is simple: Who has the final word on what is true? And just as key is one's individual response to that question, for if one admits to an authority outside of one's own self, must not that same person conform his or her life to the demands of that authority?

Apple is well known for branding its products after the self: iPhone, iPad, iPod... I, I, I. It's clear how Jobs' philosophy of the primacy of self has impacted his brand and the culture it permeates..

What are the "Transformations" posts all about?

If you missed the original post, the idea behind my Transformations series is that I am committing to writing 100 posts on the topic of a specific thing I've done that day to try to become a better man.

Why "Convert Man"?

A key moment in my life was my decision to become Catholic. People like me are called "converts." Up to that point (1997) I had been a Bible-school educated Free Methodist with a light salting of the charismatic movement. I was, and still am, a born-gain Christian with a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ.

But why on earth would an evangelical Christian ever become Catholic?!? Isn't that going backwards?

This is a decision many of my friends and family could not understand. Ultimately, the reason was one of authority: who has it? As a Protestant, my answer was always "The Bible."

But I never stopped to ask myself if the Bible itself claims that it has final authority in all spiritual and moral matters of any importance.

It does not.

There are countless references in Scripture to there being sources of the Truth other than what is Written. I explained my reasoning (albeit sloppily) based on passages from my old NIV Bible way back in 1998, and later posted it to my blog. For a better explanation, check this out.

I was actually very surprised to discover this truth, and once I did the only logical place to turn was to the only place which claims to retain the oral teachings of the faith of old.

Since I "crossed the Tiber" I've had no regrets, despite the lost friendships and tense moments with my family. It's all worth it. See Matthew 13:44.